The Lower Columbia River was home territory for Chinook people, whose lives revolved around the river. Native people set up temporary camps on this site for fishing, visited to gather roots and berries, and traded with one another. The Chinook had a lot of contact here with inland native peoples, such as the Klickitat and Cowlitz.

Fort Vancouver was probably built at the end-point of the Klickitat Trail, a long network of trails and prairies through the Cascade Mountains. With the other end of the trail upriver at The Dalles, Klickitat people travelled to gather plants as they ripened at different elevations. They also travelled to exchange prairie resources (such as game, roots and berries) for fish and wapato root from Chinook people. This valley west of the Cascade Mountains had the densest population of native people north of Mexico.

The Klickitat people spoke a Sahaptin language, and lived on both the west and east side of the Cascades. Meanwhile, the Cowlitz were a Salishan people based along the Cowlitz River, east of Fort Vancouver.

Documenting to record and share knowledge can reveal history, and inform choices for the future. . .

The Corps of Discovery is known for the monumental journals kept by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and four other members of the corps. Their exhaustive notes, maps, and drawings offer detailed descriptions of the geography, plants and animals, and people they encountered, and record early 19th century perspectives.

On instructions from President Thomas Jefferson, a subject they documented as carefully as they could that continues to be actively documented today, is Native languages. Incorporated into the Land Bridge is a Language Walk, in which the words for River, Land, and People are recorded in nine native languages of the region. Jones and Jones Architecture worked carefully with tribes to collect these words and verify how their sounds are represented accurately.

Using a documenting process